war

The Forgotten Casualties: The Indirect Gendered Consequences of Explosive Violence on Civilian Populations

July 9, 2019

by Miles Cameron Hunter

9 July 2019

One of thousands of Syria’s widows; Hanaa’s husband went missing before their son was even born. She now struggles to support him on her own. (Image credit: 2014 UNRWA Photo by Taghrid Mohammad)

Explosive violence is a feature of most contemporary armed conflicts. It comes in many forms: from mortars and airstrikes, to landmines and suicide bombings. Tragically, it is civilians who face the brunt. There is little sign of this trend abating: the casualty monitor run by Action on Armed Violence observed a 165% increase in civilian deaths as a result of explosive violence between 2011 and 2017.

The impact of explosive violence is far-reaching, triggering numerous indirect consequences beyond an initial blast; this affects everything from the provision of effective healthcare, to education and sanitation. However, this piece focuses on a less-discussed impact of explosive violence: the series of indirect gender-related consequences. Patriarchal societal norms and values in many war-torn regions often result in women being immensely disadvantaged. Meanwhile, the traditional impression that men are the chief actors in war is still overstated, frequently leading to the impact on women going unseen. These views persist even as explosive violence in modern war harms a growing number of women and children. Women regularly find themselves widowed in societies that repress their independence, raising families alone in poverty while often enduring limited access to health and after care services. Greater awareness regarding these gender-based issues is overdue.

For men, the consequences are often more self-evident. As a result, they tend to overshadow the subtler, but no less important, impact on women. The raw statistics suggest that men and boys are more likely to be harmed in an explosive incident than women, especially when looking at landmines or explosive remnants of war (ERWs). According to data from 2015, 86% of explosive incidents where the gender was known involved men. A main reason for this is societal norms and traditional gender roles that are often present in affected areas.

In many of the worst hit regions, such as Syria and Zimbabwe, it is commonplace for men to be the chief breadwinners for the family, while afflicted regions also tend to be more economically disadvantaged. As a result, occupations such as farming and scrap salvaging are notably at risk, with labourers (usually men) forced to work dangerous land to provide for their families.

But there are more indirect gendered-consequences. In societies where it is the norm for a man to provide, a maimed father has a knock-on effect on the family. Often, it is children, generally boys, who are pulled out of school to work instead, facing the same dangers from explosive ordnance. Women also suffer the cost.

Despite being more likely to suffer direct consequences of blasts, men are also in a more advantageous position to cope by receiving treatment and/or finding alternate employment. This is largely due to gender-based bias in many affected societies. Dr Sherry Wren, in association with Doctors Without Borders, has expressed concerns that medical treatment in conflict zones, such as those in Sub-Sharan Africa and the Middle East, is far less accessible to women. Data suggests that sixty-nine percent of surgeries between 2008 and 2014 were on men, leading to fears that women are under-represented in hospitals due to their second-class societal status. It is true that for direct violent trauma, such as gunshot wounds and explosive injuries, seventy percent of surgeries were performed on men. This is not surprising. However, the alarming figure is that even for indirect trauma, such as illness and disease, seventy-three percent of surgeries were performed on men. This is a stark inequality.

The key finding of this report is that women endure many long-term, and often overlooked, indirect consequences of explosive violence. In general, there is already an issue with long-term trauma in post-war states being neglected. However, for women this is exacerbated due to a second-class status in the patriarchal societies that make up the majority of modern conflict zones. Injured women are less likely to have access to aftercare services and generally face more stigma and marginalisation than men if disfigured; according to UN research into gender-based perceptions of war survivors. There are also health complications unique to women. For instance, a blast can damage the female placenta, leading to direct or indirect complications in childbirth in future: indeed, this is one of the biggest killers of young women according to the WHO.

Women in Non-Western patriarchal societies also suffer from many indirect socio-economic consequences of explosive violence. Those widowed, or who have a husband incapacitated, face a plethora of struggles. They find themselves in a position where they must be chief breadwinner in cultures that frequently militate against women working, while also retaining the responsibility of raising children.

In Syria and Lebanon, fifty percent of families with a female head face food insecurity and are twice as likely to live in deprived informal settlements. Many women struggle to find work due to gender-based stigma. As a result, they risk being dragged into poverty and/or forced into exploitative means of income such as sex work or seeking early marriage for young girls. All of this can cause intense psychological scarring, which although not as immediately evident as physical injury, can be equally debilitating.

Even when women struggling in the aftermath of explosive violence do find conventional work there are harsh inequalities. In Lebanon, it is reported that women often work longer hours than men for just seventy-seven percent of what their male counterparts earn, while also having demanding maternal duties.

There are many more hardships facing women than those documented in this report. But its findings are demonstrative of clear gender-based issues persisting in civilian populations affected by explosive violence. The notion that men are the primary actors in war still prevails despite the ever-greater toll on women and children. Consequently, the plight of thousands of women affected by explosive incidence often goes unnoticed. As awareness for their predicament grows, traditional assumptions need to evolve along with the changing nature of war.

Miles Hunter graduated from King’s College London with a BA in War Studies and an MA in Terrorism, Security and Society. He is currently a researcher with the charitable NGO Action on Armed Violence.

Will India and Pakistan Go To War?

February 28, 2019

By Saawani Raje

28 February 2019

“Will India and Pakistan ever go to war?” This question has gained new significance since Pakistan shot down two Indian fighter jets early on the morning of 27th February and captured the pil ot of on e. For Pakistan, this escalation makes sense if you consider the escalation pyramid explained in the preceding piece. It could be in Pakistan’s strategic interests to frame Indian strikes on terrorist camps as a violation on Pakistani territory. This deflects from the main issue at hand — the existence of terrorist training camps in Pakistani territory (a claim that Pakistan has always vociferously denied) — and avoids the risk of international isolation. This piece unpacks the question of the possibility of war by analysing the trend of Indian and Pakistani crises through the lenses of nuclear deterrence, international intervention, and crisis management. It argues that while there might be escalation in confrontational rhetoric even up to the level of a limited conflict, an all-out war on a scale seen previously in 1965 or 1971 is highly unlikely for a number of reasons.

Historically, it has been argued that India practices strategic restraint. However, a re-reading of past crises, especially wars against Pakistan in 1948, 1965 or 1971, actually shows Indian political and military leaders’ willingness to escalate.^[1] Any restraint in these crises was influenced by issues like limited capabilities, risks associated with escalation, and the need to maintain national and international legitimacy.^[2] Under Narendra Modi’s government, the ‘surgical strikes’ of 2016 reiterate the political and military leadership’s willingness to use force against Pakistan as an answer to its provocation. For India, this escalation is a risk the Modi government can afford to take. The possibility of war refocuses any discontent that the Indian public has with the government. It serves to unite Indian citizens behind the government against a common enemy: Pakistan. The social and news media rhetoric in India evidences this with repeated calls for war with Pakistan since the 14 February attack.^[3] This rhetoric is especially significant given that this is an election year, and the BJP campaign has engaged quite strongly with the idea of nationalism. It is also India’s chance to call Pakistan’s bluff about its nuclear red lines. A show of strength in this regard might be a strong signal to the Pakistani establishment that India does not tolerate provocation and refuses to be held hostage to its nuclear doctrine. However, the evidence is greater to support the argument that India and Pakistan will in fact not go to war, especially on this occasion.

Firstly, both India and Pakistan have made it clear that they do not want war. When addressing the Pakistani retaliatory strikes on 27 February, Pakistani Major General Asif Ghafoor emphasised that no Indian military targets had been hit because Pakistan does not ‘want to go on the pat h of war.’ The Indian Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj echoed this sentiment when she said, ‘India doesn’t wish to see further escalation.’ Escalation to war is a risk neither side is willing to take. The existence of nuclear weapons and the economic costs of war are two factors that greatly influence this reluctance. Secondly, it is in the interests of the international community to step in with increased concern about the stability of the region in an attempt to stop escalation, as has been seen before.

Nuclear weapons in South Asia

Between 1974 and 1998, both India and Pakistan went through a period of ‘nuclear opacity.’ This was a situation in which neither state’s leaders had acknowledged the existence of their state’s nuclear program, but there was enough evidence about the program’s existence to influence the other nation’s perceptions and actions.^[4] During this time, awareness about the other’s nuclear arsenal raised insecurities; however, neither state wanted to escalate tensions because they were unsure about the other’s nuclear posture. Such was the case in the 1986 Brasstacks Military exercise and a 1990 crisis between the two states that CIA Deputy Director Richard Kerr described as ‘the most dangerous nuclear situation’ he had faced. In both cases, the states reached the brink of crisis and withdrew, in part due to concern and ambiguity about each other’s nuclear posture.^[5]

Following tests in 1998, both states declared themselves nuclear weapon-capable states. The Pakistani nuclear doctrine was India-specific and emphasised that given Indian conventional capability, Pakistan reserved the right to use nuclear weapons first in extremis.^[6] This provided Pakistan with compelling incentive to provoke India, while remaining secure in the knowledge that its nuclear policy severely limited Indian retaliatory options. As exemplified in the 1999 Kargil conflict when, despite rhetoric from both sides showing willingness to explore nuclear avenues of escalation, India showed restraint in not crossing the Line of Control, avoiding crossing Pakistan’s nuclear red line.

Ironically, the years of nuclear opacity have been relatively more stable than the years following the declaration of India and Pakistan as nuclear powers. In addition, cases like Kargil, the 2001-02 military standoff between India and Pakistan, or the 2008 Mumbai attack show an emboldened and provocative Pakistan that uses its first strike nuclear doctrine as a shield against a restrained India that is limited by its no-first use doctrine. Pakistan’s testing of tactical nuclear weapons further complicates issues, as this operationalises nuclear weapons. Pakistan thus continues to attack India in low-level unconventional methods because it is safe in the knowledge that India’s ability to retaliate is limited. It thus falls upon India to call Pakistan’s bluff. The excuse of targeting terrorist havens in Pakistani territory, as the much-publicised surgical strikes showed, provide an efficient instrument for India to do just that. Thus, escalation of conventional conflict is a much bigger risk in South Asia than is purported.

International involvement in de-escalation:

The question then is, despite the increased instability, why does the conflict between the two states not lead to war? The answer lies in the examination of past wars between India and Pakistan and the role of the international community in bringing them to a close. India-Pakistan crises in 1965, 1999 and the 2001-02 standoff all saw the international community scramble to bring about de-escalation.^[7] In all the crises, India adopted a strong coercive posture, possibly with the knowledge that in event of increased escalation, the international community will step in to cease hostilities as it did in each of those conflicts.

In sum, nuclear weapons increase stability in the region in general. They do increase the likelihood of low-level conflict, but they decrease the likelihood of all-out war between the two states. Secondly, escalation of conflict between India and Pakistan has always been looked at with growing concern by the international community, which has more often than not played a pivotal role in the cessation of hostilities, as the cases of 1948, 1965 and Kargil show. These factors decrease the likelihood of India and Pakistan going to war with each other despite the possibility that they will engage in an escalation of rhetoric or even low-level hostilities. While the rhetoric in India today is inherently advocating strong retributive action against Pakistan, the above factors show that despite an escalation of rhetoric, diplomatic efforts or even limited military action, India and Pakistan will not actually end up in an all-out war with each other. The social media #saynotowar hashtag that is currently seen across a lot of Indian and Pakistani social media might be more on point than ever.

Saawani Raje is a PhD candidate at the King’s India Institute and a recipient of the King’s India Scholarship, as well as a Senior Editor at Strife. Her PhD research is primarily a historical examination into civil-military decision-making during crises in independent India. You can follow her on Twitter @saawaniraje.

Notes:

^[1] Rudra Chaudhuri, ‘Indian “Strategic Restraint” Revisited: The Case of the 1965 India-Pakistan War’, India Review 17, no. 1 (1 January 2018): 55–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2018.1415277; Srinath Raghavan, 1971 A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013).

^[2] Rudra Chaudhuri, ‘Indian “Strategic Restraint” Revisited: The Case of the 1965 India-Pakistan War’, India Review 17, no. 1 (1 January 2018): 55–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2018.1415277.

^[3] Fatima Bhutto, ‘Opinion | Hashtags for War Between India and Pakistan’, The New York Times , 27 February 2019, sec. Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/opinion/india-pakistan-crisis.html.

^[4] Scott D. Sagan, ed., Inside Nuclear South Asia , Reprint edition (Stanford, Calif: Stanford Security Studies, 2009).

^[5] Devin T. Hagerty, ‘Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: The 1990 Indo-Pakistani Crisis’, International Security 20, no. 3 (1995): 79–114, https://doi.org/10.2307/2539140.

^[6] ‘Krepon et Al. – 2013 – Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in Sou.Pdf’, accessed 27 February 2019, https://www.stimson.org/sites/default/files/file-attachments/Deterrence_Stability_Dec_2013_web_1.pdf.

^[7] Farooq Naseem Bajwa, From Kutch to Tashkent: The Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 (London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2013); Malik V. P. General, Kargil : From Surprise To Victory (New Delhi: Harpercollins, 2010); ‘To the Brink: 2001-02 India-Pakistan Standoff’, accessed 27 February 2019, http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/to-the-brink-2001-02-india-pakistan-standoff/; Sumit Ganguly and Michael R. Kraig, ‘The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani Crisis: Exposing the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy’, Security Studies 14, no. 2 (April 2005): 290–324.

Image source: https://www.dailypioneer.com/uploads/2016/story/images/big/9431_1.gif

Art, conflict, and the everyday – Traces of War launch event

April 18, 2016

By: Laurie Benson

Ribbons I, 2015. 6 bars made of various Siachen soldier’s clothing, sponge and wood. Photo credit: Baptist Coelho, Project 88, Mumbai; LAMO, Leh.

Wednesday 13th April marked the launch of the Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence hosted by the Arts and Conflict Hub and Research Centre in International Relations, Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The residency features the artist Baptist Coelho who introduced his artistic practice at the event. An exhibition entitled ‘Traces of War’ will be held in November 2016 at the Inigo Rooms. Co-curator Cécile Bourne-Farrell stressed that the exhibition is an exploratory process to ‘recalibrate our vision’, not by transcending, but engaging with the everyday experiences of war and its locations. This article explores certain themes prompted by the upcoming exhibition and discussions, namely in terms of commemoration, the everyday, and the role of artists and art in conflict.

Screen Shot 2016-04-21 at 15.25.52 — Left to Right: Baptist Coelho, Vivienne Jabri, Cécile Bourne-Farrell. (Photo Credit: Xenia Zubova)

Council Room, King’s College London, Strand Campus. (Photo Credit: Laurie Benson)

Baptist’s presentation took the audience on a journey from locations in India and Pakistan, to the living rooms of ex-British soldiers, and memorial sites in Brighton. Since 2006 he has engaged with the India/Pakistan conflict though a project entitled Siachen Glacier, exploring the extreme conditions experienced by soldiers on the border-located glacier battlefield. Notable pieces have included Ribbons I (2015) and “I long to see some colour…” (2009) an installation piece in which empty photo frames in a soldier’s rucksack suggest that what is not visible can still be present. From tales recounted to the artist embedded with the soldiers, the claustrophobic white landscapes of the glacier framed their reality day in, day out. So often saturated by the CNN-bannered news imagery or fluorescent aerial drone aesthetics, Baptist’s work and its realisation in the gallery space also stresses the banal palettes of conflict.

DSC07121 edited — “I long to see some colour…”, 2009. Installation with soldier’s nylon rucksack and 70 photo frames. Photo credit: Baptist Coelho; Project 88, Mumbai; Visual Arts Gallery, Delhi. Collection: The Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection

Working in mixed-media, from installation and photography to video, his practice draws on different textures, archival maps, booklets, interviews, and recently, gauge bandages. His aesthetic engagement prompts the viewer to consider the co-presence of different narratives; of what gets counted or not. Conflict involves human lives, bodily disposition, struggle, and the day-to-day. Focusing on objects juxtaposed in a cold display cabinet, for example, alludes to the proximity and distance of conflict and its display. How and through what frames is conflict viewed? What does an audience expect to see? What are the ethical and political implications of visibility and what is naturalised?
The role of the artist in conflict and politics has long been theorised, contested, and marketed. Art has been drawn upon to illustrate the horrors of war by academics, critics, and philosophers alike. Picasso’s Guernica is one of the most commonly cited examples. But perhaps what is also at stake is the practice, the doing. Artistic methods of researching and visualising intervene as much as they reveal; ways of working are potentially disruptive. They are also relational. Art is curated, exhibited, funded, viewed, and reviewed in contexts with audiences bringing their own frames of reference, expectations, and experiences in these processes of meaning-making. As Theodor Adorno reminds us, art works are both aesthetic and ‘social fact’.

Memories and traces of the past surface in the present, from war memorials, literature, film, and art, to personal stories passed through generations, and community claims left unrecognised in (re)articulations of the nation. How and what gets commemorated- its performance and symbolic cache- are political, intersecting the private and public. Public sites, for example museums and their collections, are not neutral but institutional spaces with bordering practices that intersect personal histories and official narrative. Baptist stresses engaging with the archive as a central part of his artistic research. The archive is active, not a relic of the past, but rather history in the present. An upcoming art project will look at the commemoration in a Brighton community for an Indian soldier fighting under the British in World War One. The recent controversies over the statue of Cecil Rhodes exemplifies the ongoing question of how a nation deals with its colonial past and what, and whom, are considered to belong. Judith Butler speaks of the ‘derealisation of loss’, of the politics and hierarchy of human experience, but Baptist’s work also suggests the possibility of thinking differently through and with art and its politics.

The exhibition supported by King’s Cultural Programming entitled ‘Traces of War’ will be held in the Indigo Rooms, from 26th October to December 2016.It is being curated by Professor Vivienne Jabri, Department of War Studies, and Cécile Bourne-Farrell. The exhibition will feature work by prominent artists, Jananne Al-Ani and Shaun Gladwell as well as pieces by Baptist as-yet exhibited in the UK. The residency, featuring the artist Baptist Coelho, is being supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the Delfina Foundation.
Laurie Benson is a PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies

For more information about the artist please check:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/people/baptist/index.aspx

Additional Information & Media:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/news/newsrecords/Baptist-Coelho-launch-marks-Traces-of-War-exhibition.aspx

A Whiff of Brass: The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson

July 28, 2015

By Bradley Lineker:

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson, Hodder and Stoughton., 2014. Pages: 416. £25.00 (hardback). ISBN 9781444783025

When young Tories are about to make their maiden speeches in the House of Commons, they can often be found – or so Johnson tells us – in the Member’s Lobby underneath the imposing statue of Churchill, as if trying to channel the great man’s spirit. [1] Indeed, Churchill’s left foot has been rubbed to a brassy-shine with all the attempted thaumaturgy; and while there is more than a whiff of left-footed-brassiness about the book, it is also quite a bit more than this.

Much like Boris himself, the book is an entertaining – if at times buffoonish – introduction to Churchill’s character and achievements that, alongside some very obvious flaws, achieves Johnson’s stated aim: of providing an insight into the life and times of the Greatest Briton to a generation now twice-removed from when he lived.

The structure of the book, similar to Johnson’s other writings, reflects this aim; particularly as the small news-article-style chapters – each thematically dealing with specific parts of Churchill’s character and achievements – emphasise accessibility. While this compliments the breezy conversational prose, there are moments where it can appear lazy – his Jeremy Kyle treatment of Churchill’s fiascos[2] for instance – or grate on the reader – see, in particular, his clunky use of ending paragraphs to introduce new chapters. Furthermore, much like his hero, it seems Johnson has dictated much of the book, and for those expectant of substantive prose, in places it unfortunately shows.

Johnson begins the book by outlining events of 1940, before steadily, and with a rough sort of chronology, moving through Churchill’s life using his character-traits as a sort of guide to base his chapters. Johnson’s chapters arc over Churchill’s courage,[3] risk-taking,[4] use of language,[5] as well as his general character,[6] and personal relationships – to name but a few. This method, while perhaps illustrating how the work cannot really be treated as a work of pure-history (something that Johnson himself admits[7]), is nonetheless effective at offering an accessible kaleidoscope to the man.

The Churchill Factor isn’t a history in the proper sense, nor even is it really a biography, it is more an informal personal appraisal; and it therefore cannot be compared to nor extend the work of Churchill’s other biographers. This is reinforced by Johnson’s constant referral to professional historians, such as Max Hastings’ assessment of the paucity of the British officer class,[8] or Lamb’s account of the destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir[9], as well as his cartoonish metaphors – such as comparing Britain’s war reputation to that of Manchester United and its actual record to Tunstall Town F.C.[10] However, Johnson’s playful cavalierness with people and events leads to gross over-simplifications of history that at times mar the text. For instance, “Germany … and German militarism and expansion”[11] are narrowly blamed for the First World War (an argument that has significantly more problems than that for 1939-1945), which, when situated alongside blithe comments about the effects of the reforms of the 1920s (“[Churchill] helped save Britain from fascism not once, but twice”[12]), among many other examples, betrays a dangerously simplistic retelling of history. Moreover, scattered here and there, there is a faint knee-slapping jingoism, demonstrated by Johnson’s account of British national identity[13] and Churchill’s “foreign names … [are] made for Englishmen, not Englishmen for foreign names” telegram[14], which together seem to embellish and glorify imperial Britishness, while dimming its excesses.

Although, one is left to wonder how much of the book is actually about Winston Churchill, as, too often, it is stymied by Johnson’s attempts to work out the ambiguity in his own relationship with the former Prime Minister. While Johnson, much in the same way that a 12-year old Boris may have done,[15] lavishes praise upon the Greatest Briton[16] – even embarking on a pilgrimage, complete with can of “Stella” and cigar, to Churchill’s First World War billet in southern Belgium[17] – the truth seems more ambiguous: “[while] I love writing and thinking about Winston Churchill, the old boy can sometimes be faintly intimidating. I hasten to say that he is always brilliant fun – but as you try to do justice to his life you are acutely conscious of being chained to a genius, and a genius of unbelievable energy and fecundity.”[18] This is the most overt articulation of Johnson’s own presence in the book, where he continually – consciously or subconsciously – compares and at times attempts to match Churchill while recording his achievements.

Some of Johnson’s more welcome interventions are, in fact, when he gives us analysis on the nature of the politician,[19] journalist[20] or writing under the influence of alcohol. [21] Johnson’s deconstruction of Churchill’s speechmaking (“It’s all about the music of the speech, more than the logic. It’s the sizzle, not the sausage.”[22]), and the schmoozing of FDR and America[23] are unique in that they’re being made by an active politician. However his political point scoring can be tedious in places – such as when he says: “[Churchill] was radical precisely because he was conservative. He knew what all sensible Tories know – that the only way to keep things the same is to make sure you change them…” [24] These comments, offered here and there, are interesting in their own right (again, coming from an active politician) but they seem out of place in this book.

The Churchill Factor remains a light-hearted and accessible companion piece to other biographies, an altogether more detailed and distinguished Horrible History,[25] to both a man and his historical period, which remains stunted by its style, marred by wistful historical distortions, disengaged with other histories, and bogged-down with the vanity of its author. The book certainly has its flaws, but it is inescapably entertaining nonetheless – with the easy, conversational charm only broken at times by stylistic chunkiness and a few oddball absurdities that one has to accept as part of the Johnson package. However, in view of its dictated-style and its purposely patchy application of historical and biographical traditions, and especially in view of the excellent McKellen-narrated piece – which share many similarities to Johnson’s book – the question remains: why wasn’t this a documentary instead of a book?

Bradley Lineker is currently a fully-funded ESRC doctoral candidate in the War Studies Department, King’s College London. He has extensive experience working as a consulting research analyst with the UN and the private sector on contexts like Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Kenya, Somalia and Syria. Follow him @BradleyLineker.

NOTES

[1] Johnson, B. (2014), The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History (London: Hodder and Stoughton), p. 31

2Ibid., p. 201-224

3 Ibid., p. 56-68 Chapter 5: No Act Too Daring or Too Noble

4 Ibid., p. 201-224 Chapter 15: Playing Roulette with History

5 Ibid., p. 84-101 Chapter 7: He Mobilised the English Language

6 Ibid., p. 134-147 ‘Chapter 10: The Making of John Bull’

7 Ibid., p. 4

8 Ibid., p. 266

9 Ibid., p. 233

10 Ibid., p. 265

11 Ibid., p. 173-4

12 Ibid., p. 162

13 Ibid., p. 136

14 Ibid., p. 199

15 see Ibid., p. 189 for a particular memorable quote

16 Ibid., p. 1

17 Ibid., p. 174

18 Ibid., p. 350

19 Ibid., p. 206

20 Ibid., p. 70

21 Ibid., p. 70

22 Ibid., p. 90

23 Ibid., p. 241-256

24 Ibid., p. 160

25 I have borrowed this likeness from: Coughlin, C. (2014). “The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson, review: ‘a breathless romp’”. The Telegraph. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/11182335/the-churchill-factor-by-boris-johnson.html.

Fury: War up close and personal

January 21, 2015

By Alex Calvo:

Since the birth of cinema, war has been a perennial source of inspiration for films. However, the resulting genre is anything but uniform. Under the label “war film” one can find a wide spectrum of films, going from mere action filled with special effects (sometimes referred to as “war porn”) to pacifist pamphlets seeking to denounce the futility of a given conflict or of warfare in general. And there are many sub-categories in between, including historical films and biopics of famous generals. Within the historical film genre, one finds a similar range to that observable in military history scholarship, with some works covering a whole war or campaign, while others focus on some limited action or the experience of a small group of soldiers. Fury, which came out late last year and stars Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal, belongs to this latter category.

The viewer is told the setting is Germany, in the closing weeks of the Second World War, but other than that much of the action takes place in the narrow confines of a tank. When not inside the tank we see – at most – a road, a village, or a field, never more than that. This is a film with no generals, no large armies, and no big battles. Engagements feature no more than a few tanks and a handful of troops and other vehicles. This is war up close and personal, war in small scale, war centered on the individual and a small closely-knit group of fellow warriors bent on survival.While not the first war film to adopt that perspective, what stands out in Fury is the balance between the experience of the individuals in the small group and the wider conflict. This is no individualistic, self-centred tale of a soldier’s suffering, disconnected from the reasons for why a war is being fought. Nor is it a mechanistic depiction of a small unit simply following orders on their path to victory and glory. What we find instead, in line with the real-life experience of many combatants, is a group of soldiers determined to do their job, do it well, watch each other’s back, survive, and go home as soon as possible.

This does not mean that the wider political and moral background to the war is forgotten. On the contrary, there is no room for moral relativism in Fury, no attempt to portray the two sides as equal or even comparable, and no room for historical revisionism or the obsession of some media outlets with the misguided notion that the war was won by virtue of strength of numbers and superior firepower alone. As Fury makes clear, regardless of Allied superiority, victory came through myriad small actions and the sacrifice of ordinary troops.

Fury is a story where good fights evil, but is more nuanced than the standard good/bad war films. It avoids cartoon-like characterizations, and focuses on how the motivation to engage in battle comes more from frontline experience – the desire to protect your brothers-in-arms and the raw hatred of the enemy – than from any overarching ideological doctrines. Again, as many with actual combat experience will attest, in many conflicts newly-arrived soldiers will lack the necessary degree of hate towards the enemy to successfully engage them in the field of battle. This was the case even in WWII, a conflict marked by a clear ideological difference between the two sides. The film shows this, taking us through the painful but ultimately essential process through which the tank’s newest crew member comes to understand the rules of the game, not through theoretical lectures on the evils of Nazism, but through a combination of peer pressure, father-like mentoring, actual engagements, fear of death, and the ultimate realization that this is a very different world from the one back home.

Fury is also a story that examines in detail the tight bonds among men who live, eat, and fight together every day, knowing it could be their last. It is done, furthermore, in a realistic way, showing the viewer the different facets of an essential yet often difficult relationship between very different people. This is no group of flawless heroes, they are all different and they often clash, most notably when arguing about the language to be used inside the tank, and then again during the discussions about religion, and most tellingly in their encounter with a German family. These clashes contribute to the credibility of the film, making its characters believable.

The same nuanced approach is in evidence in the way that the film deals with relations between soldiers and civilians, on both sides, and between the crumbling Nazi regime and its population and troops. The suffering of refugees and of civilians caught up in the midst of combat is portrayed openly and in all its cruelty, without embellishment, in a matter-of-fact way, as an unavoidable aspect of war. The same realism is on display when soldiers and civilians meet, including the long lunch scene, one of the most intimate passages of the film.

Central to this very realistic portrayal of combat, and the true nature of war, is the film’s score. Deeply dark, yet full of grit and action when suitable, it succeeds in creating the necessary atmosphere for the viewer to fully absorb the main characters’ experience, and gain a glimpse of what the experience of combat is like. The film’s historical credentials are also supported by meticulous attention to detail when it comes to uniforms and equipment. For example, we see the only remaining working Tiger tank, captured in Tunisia in 1943 and part of the collection of the Bovington Tank Museum. To ensure combat scenes were realistic, the help of four tank veterans was enlisted, among them 91-year old Bill Betts, a Sherman radio operator in the Essex Yeomanry and a D-day veteran, who was shot by a German sniper. While older films like Patton avoid the gory depiction of combat wounds, and Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene gives viewers a no-holds-barred look of a battlefield, Fury walks a careful path, showing the impact of war on combatants yet without distracting viewers from the film’s narrative.

Fury is many things. It is a tale of a small group of men brought together by war, and their ordeal to fight to live another day. It is the story of a newly arrived recruit and his rapid – albeit painful – integration into the group and his discovery of what war and fighting is about. The film is a reminder that WWII was, up to the last minute, a brutal struggle, where despite Allied material superiority there was always the need for close combat, with victory in battle often coming at a staggering cost. It is also an examination of the difficult moral choices one has to make on the battlefield. Fury is also an attack on moral relativism, making it clear who was on the right side of history, while showing us in detail how a green soldier came to understand it.

In a world which has not yet said goodbye to war, where it is often fashionable to commemorate wars without actually looking at combat, Fury is a necessary film. It reminds us that war is violent and painful but sometimes necessary, and that WWII was not won just because of material superiority, but because of the small groups of soldiers who fought to the last moment in unimaginable circumstances.

Alex Calvo is a student at Birmingham University’s MA in Second World War Studies program. He is the author of ‘The Second World War in Central Asia: Events, Identity, and Memory’, in S. Akyildiz and R. Carlson ed., Social and cultural Change in Central Asia: The Soviet Legacy (London: Routledge, 2013) and tweets at @Alex__Calvo. His work can be found here.

war

Footer

Contact

Recent Posts

Tags